Point 2: The Person or Being of the Father
The topic of the Father is an interesting one because there is little disagreement concerning Him even amongst the most adversarial positions. Muslims, Jews, Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians, Mormons, etc… all acknowledge the Father as God. So from this it would seem that there is little to debate, but on the contrary, our views of the Father are all different.
Immediately I must define the Father as a Person, the first Person of the Trinity. The Father’s Being is the same as that of the Son and the Holy Spirit yet he is Distinct Personally from the other two.
There isn’t much to be said in this topic concerning the Father’s Deity as we both agree that the Father is God. Where we disagree is in the Father being alone in possession of the Nature of Deity. I have set forth my affirmative position on the Trinity in three points (Creation, Salvation, Indwelling), showing the Father to be active in all three. To this list many things can be added, but they would be added for naught. I will however revisit one point where Searchingone1033 said that the Bible and Early Church Fathers declared that the Father created alone. Such is not the case at all.
The scriptures cited in support of this all showed that Yahweh God created alone. As a Trinitarian I readily affirm that truth because Yahweh is a Tri-unity of Persons. One has to reason circularly to say that the Father created alone. It requires first the belief that Yahweh is only the Father, and then it takes this belief and reads it back into every passage concerning Yahweh, concluding that they all speak of the Father alone. Such is begging the question and must be pointed out as fallacious.
The Early Church quotes simply affirmed that the Father is God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. This is also a fact that I affirm as a Trinitarian as all three Persons were active in creation, the Father included. The statements are not denials of the other two Persons creative abilities and roles. I’d also point out that the “us” and “our” issue from Genesis 1:26 was glossed over. We were only told that in the next verse the singular noun and verb were used, yet we weren’t told how this coincides with the previous verse or how this in any way shows One Person as opposed to One Being. The Trinitarian position explains this seeming contradiction with clarity and good reason.
That being said, it is obvious that Searchingone1033 does not deny the deity of the Father. He does not deny that the Father is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Therefore I find myself needing to affirm first the Personality of the Father.
Let me first state that Searchingone1033 made many appeals to God being One Person, the Father, yet never told us in what way the Father is a Person. It appears that this has been taken for granted. Perhaps he believes that the pronouns 'He', 'His', 'Him', 'I', 'Me', and 'My' establish this fact, but I would argue that they only help to build the case. As per my definition in my first rebuttal to Searchingone1033’s opening statement, I will set forth the Father’s Personality.
The Father thinks (intelligence)
Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. (Psalm 40:5)
How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! (Psalm 139:17)
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8)
The Father reasons (rational)
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18).
The Father is self-aware (conscious)
And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; (Genesis 35:11)
Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. (Psalm 46:10)
Having now established firmly the Personality of the Father with a scriptural foundation we can look into his identity as Father. Why is He called “Father” and in what sense is He called this? These questions will be answered in the following paragraphs.
The Father is known in relation to the Son. A Father cannot by logical necessity be a Father (that is, truly a Father) without a child. When we use terms like “Early Church Fathers” or “Founding Fathers of our Nation” we are using the word “Father” in a symbolic sense. Symbolically these men were at the foundation of these movements and helped to symbolically birth them. Such is not the case with God the Father.
The topic of the Father is an interesting one because there is little disagreement concerning Him even amongst the most adversarial positions. Muslims, Jews, Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians, Mormons, etc… all acknowledge the Father as God. So from this it would seem that there is little to debate, but on the contrary, our views of the Father are all different.
Immediately I must define the Father as a Person, the first Person of the Trinity. The Father’s Being is the same as that of the Son and the Holy Spirit yet he is Distinct Personally from the other two.
There isn’t much to be said in this topic concerning the Father’s Deity as we both agree that the Father is God. Where we disagree is in the Father being alone in possession of the Nature of Deity. I have set forth my affirmative position on the Trinity in three points (Creation, Salvation, Indwelling), showing the Father to be active in all three. To this list many things can be added, but they would be added for naught. I will however revisit one point where Searchingone1033 said that the Bible and Early Church Fathers declared that the Father created alone. Such is not the case at all.
The scriptures cited in support of this all showed that Yahweh God created alone. As a Trinitarian I readily affirm that truth because Yahweh is a Tri-unity of Persons. One has to reason circularly to say that the Father created alone. It requires first the belief that Yahweh is only the Father, and then it takes this belief and reads it back into every passage concerning Yahweh, concluding that they all speak of the Father alone. Such is begging the question and must be pointed out as fallacious.
The Early Church quotes simply affirmed that the Father is God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. This is also a fact that I affirm as a Trinitarian as all three Persons were active in creation, the Father included. The statements are not denials of the other two Persons creative abilities and roles. I’d also point out that the “us” and “our” issue from Genesis 1:26 was glossed over. We were only told that in the next verse the singular noun and verb were used, yet we weren’t told how this coincides with the previous verse or how this in any way shows One Person as opposed to One Being. The Trinitarian position explains this seeming contradiction with clarity and good reason.
That being said, it is obvious that Searchingone1033 does not deny the deity of the Father. He does not deny that the Father is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Therefore I find myself needing to affirm first the Personality of the Father.
Let me first state that Searchingone1033 made many appeals to God being One Person, the Father, yet never told us in what way the Father is a Person. It appears that this has been taken for granted. Perhaps he believes that the pronouns 'He', 'His', 'Him', 'I', 'Me', and 'My' establish this fact, but I would argue that they only help to build the case. As per my definition in my first rebuttal to Searchingone1033’s opening statement, I will set forth the Father’s Personality.
The Father thinks (intelligence)
Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. (Psalm 40:5)
How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! (Psalm 139:17)
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8)
The Father reasons (rational)
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18).
The Father is self-aware (conscious)
And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; (Genesis 35:11)
Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. (Psalm 46:10)
Having now established firmly the Personality of the Father with a scriptural foundation we can look into his identity as Father. Why is He called “Father” and in what sense is He called this? These questions will be answered in the following paragraphs.
The Father is known in relation to the Son. A Father cannot by logical necessity be a Father (that is, truly a Father) without a child. When we use terms like “Early Church Fathers” or “Founding Fathers of our Nation” we are using the word “Father” in a symbolic sense. Symbolically these men were at the foundation of these movements and helped to symbolically birth them. Such is not the case with God the Father.
Eternality
God the Father is eternal as evidenced by Psalm 90:2, “from everlasting to everlasting thou art God” and Deuteronomy 33:27, “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms…” God’s power and divinity are eternal (Romans 1:20) as well as His glory (1Peter 5:10) and purpose (Ephesians 3:11). Establishing the Father’s eternality is central to His Person because what follows will show the sense in which he has eternally been the Father.
Immutability
God is immutable as Psalm 102:27 declares, “thou art the same and thy years shall have no end.” Yahweh emphatically stating His immutability in Malachi 3:6 saying, “For I am the LORD, I change not…” James informs us that there is no variation in the Father of lights (James 1:17). Thus the immutability of God the Father is established from scripture which brings me to my next point.
Logical Arguments
If God is eternal (which He is) and immutable (which He is), and God is the Father (which He is), then it follows that God has always been the Father. We cannot understand this in the symbolic sense because God has existed from all eternity, pre-existing all that could be considered symbolic children. In other words, to claim that God is known as “Father” in the symbolic sense because he is “The Father of Spirits” (Hebrews 12:9) or the “Father of Lights” (James 1:17) or because angels are referred to as “sons of God” (Job 1:6, 2:1) is necessarily false because all of these things are created. They all came into existence in time, not eternity.
There was a time when there was no light because God had to create light (Genesis 1:3). Likewise there was a time before men had spirits because God had to breathe the breath of life into the nostrils of the first man Adam (Genesis 2:7) and Ecclesiastes 12:7 affirms that God gave the spirit to man. We also see that by the Word of the LORD and the breath of His mouth were all the hosts of heaven (angels) made (Psalm 33:6). Even if one holds to the Arian position of Jesus being the first creation of God, there is still no accounting for the Father being the Father before creation, from all eternity. Thus we must conclude that in the real sense of the word “Father” that God the Father has always been exactly that—an eternal Father with an eternal Son.
We cannot conclude the Father to ever have not been the Father because of his eternality and immutability, yet we cannot conclude the Father to be the Father in either sense (truly or symbolically) without a child of some sort. If there was a time when all things which were created were not in existence, then we can’t take this in the symbolic sense. If the Son was a creation, then He falls into the former category. Therefore we can only reason that there had to have been an eternal child, the Son of God who could qualify the Father as Father. This is also the position supported by scripture and one that will be dealt with in more detail in the next point of debate concerning the Son.
Now having stated all of this I expect to hear a lot of things more focused on the Father’s Deity than anything else. I expect to see scripture passages calling the Father God, a point that I affirm. I expect to see the topic shifted from the Father being God to the Son not being God, a point that I reject. But what I would like to see most and don’t expect to see at all (because none exists) is a valid reason for how a Father can be a Father from all eternity without having a Son who has been His Son from all eternity.
If God is eternal (which He is) and immutable (which He is), and God is the Father (which He is), then it follows that God has always been the Father. We cannot understand this in the symbolic sense because God has existed from all eternity, pre-existing all that could be considered symbolic children. In other words, to claim that God is known as “Father” in the symbolic sense because he is “The Father of Spirits” (Hebrews 12:9) or the “Father of Lights” (James 1:17) or because angels are referred to as “sons of God” (Job 1:6, 2:1) is necessarily false because all of these things are created. They all came into existence in time, not eternity.
There was a time when there was no light because God had to create light (Genesis 1:3). Likewise there was a time before men had spirits because God had to breathe the breath of life into the nostrils of the first man Adam (Genesis 2:7) and Ecclesiastes 12:7 affirms that God gave the spirit to man. We also see that by the Word of the LORD and the breath of His mouth were all the hosts of heaven (angels) made (Psalm 33:6). Even if one holds to the Arian position of Jesus being the first creation of God, there is still no accounting for the Father being the Father before creation, from all eternity. Thus we must conclude that in the real sense of the word “Father” that God the Father has always been exactly that—an eternal Father with an eternal Son.
We cannot conclude the Father to ever have not been the Father because of his eternality and immutability, yet we cannot conclude the Father to be the Father in either sense (truly or symbolically) without a child of some sort. If there was a time when all things which were created were not in existence, then we can’t take this in the symbolic sense. If the Son was a creation, then He falls into the former category. Therefore we can only reason that there had to have been an eternal child, the Son of God who could qualify the Father as Father. This is also the position supported by scripture and one that will be dealt with in more detail in the next point of debate concerning the Son.
Now having stated all of this I expect to hear a lot of things more focused on the Father’s Deity than anything else. I expect to see scripture passages calling the Father God, a point that I affirm. I expect to see the topic shifted from the Father being God to the Son not being God, a point that I reject. But what I would like to see most and don’t expect to see at all (because none exists) is a valid reason for how a Father can be a Father from all eternity without having a Son who has been His Son from all eternity.
